Bowsite.com

I disagree with the end message that basically all people are good (besides the elite) and the elites are the evil, and if we can eliminate their power, we have heaven on earth. It’s just anti biblical. But figuring out who actually owns what, is very eye opening.

This is an old old message, that is, capitalism breeds greed and corruption and government is needed to step in on behalf of the downtrodden. The answer is a socalist government which will reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator, in areas of life such as financial means, human rights, education and property rights. Just as the commentator in the video steers the information, a singular master planner is at the top of that socialist governmental pyramid.

If you read the Declaration of Independence, you will quickly see that the American founders put the "laws of nature and natures God" at the top of the pyramid and all people "entitled" to be independent in their persons and all of equal station under God. Freedom, which is valued by Americans, comes from God alone and the government was established to protect the rights given to us by God. Self righteous people for as long as time have striven to supplant God and the results are always failure and suffering for people.

The scary part is when you realize how few people have the potential to own a huge part of the market share, and they are also the ones funding political campaigns, big media, things like “awareness” projects, etc, it’ll creep towards something that looks a lot more like socialism than capitalism. Of course, this is just my opinion

If you rank non-profits by the revenues they generate each year, Gates is 3rd, Soros is 50th, and, again, Clintons don't make the top 100.

I stopped watching the video at that point because it was clear he's cherry picking his information to suit his narrative.

Matt

The "we"and "us", spoken of at the end of the video, is extending to the viewer a path to Utopia/Eden. Seduction is a measured process.

Who but our Creator has the correct perspective on the world today and the ultimate future of mankind?

More often than not I find that conspiracy theorys discount the hand of God in the world affairs.

It’s comforting to know that as these things play out, they only happen at the mercy of His hand, just like Jesus’ death, all in order to fulfill his perfect plan.

I'm actually surprised a Bowsite member would post a video that supports Marxist concepts. I'm with 2WildBill on this one.

Matt

You can still request paper stock certificates in your name, but it may cost you hundreds of dollars in fees to have them issued and I believe that you might then have to physically return them to the company to sell them.

…Says the union steward of the Bowsite garbage men!!!

1. Homestead - grown your own food and buy local as much as possible 2. Stop believing main stream narratives 3. Get out of debt 4. Build local communities 5. Resist tyrannical lockdowns and mandated medical procedures 6. Speak the truth - call out and shame bad actors 7. Realize corporations are trying to manipulate you so you detect it a mile away

Im sure i could keep going, but there's a few

Matt

Since you asked, I'll tell you what I'm doing.

You have to understand that until 1215, the whole world was indeed on a fast track to a one world government. All governments were tyranical and it wasn't till the Magna Carta that a crack formed in the relationship between the head of state and subjects. In 1776 that little crack became a huge rupture in the relationship between one nation of people and their government. The founders of America planted an idea that turned the pyramid of governmental power upside down. WE THE PEOPLE, were stating before the whole world that NOBODY stood between them and God. No king, ruler or church had the authority to governmental rule over them. They won the battle but the contract of unity they had was flawed, so in 1787, they determined that their delegates would forge a new contract which would create another level of government to oversee the union and represent their values of faith, justice and the desire for peacefulness in society. That contract is the American Constitution.

The delegates argued and debated for months at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. You see, they were wary of each other because they all represented the interests of their own state. There was no one nation. So at the end of their convention they were ready to sign off on the document, when George Mason of Virginia stood and asked the entire assembly if they were so naive to believe that a federal government that abused the balance of power would be gracious enough to return it freely of it's own volition? There was no immediate answer as it all sunk in to their disbelief that what they created had no means for a restoration of the balance of power in that case of a tyranical federal government. They were dumbstruck.

Finally, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts suggested that wording be added to Article V which would allow the people to move their state legislatures to call for a convention of states. The convention would be held when two thirds of the states passed a resolution within their own legislatures to do so. Following the resolution issues agreed upon by the states, the convention would propose amendments to the Constitution, which would be then submitted to all the states for a ratification. When three quarters of the states approved an amendment it then would be added to the Constitution and be the law of the land. There was no debate from any delegates and the vote to add the wording was unanimous.

Today there is a Convention of States Project underway. The issues for the resolution are term limits for federal employees and not just elected offices, fiscal restraints to curb federal spending and measures to eliminate federal overreach of power. Presently fifteen states have already passed the resolution and last year the resolution was active in twenty-six states. Thirty four states are needed to call the convention and thirty eight to ratify any amendments proposed. There are at least three million people who have signed the petition and signers can be found in all fifty states.

The founders did consider the situation America is in today as a possibility, and provided a Constitutional means to make a difference.

I am a volunteer. You CAN stand up for your country and join the work of the founders to return/restore America to original Constitution operation, or you can stand down and just leave the future to chance.

https://conventionofstates.com/

Matt

Is there something I said that makes you think I'm not in favor of free market capitalism?

I think you totally missed the point of the video, and I'm kind of embarrassed for you now.

A lot of people don't even really know what capitalism is. Buying and selling businesses isn't capitalism. That happens even in a socialist atmosphere.

Who owns the world? Nobody.

The narrator starts the video by claiming hundreds of millions of people have become impoverished, but he offers no proof. Then he shows a few clips relating to the Covid pandemic, before stating we will all be impoverished soon. But he never explains why or how. Nor does he acknowledge that the world's economy continues to grow, and that poverty levels are far lower now than they were 30 years ago.

He goes on to claim that a small number of "elite" investors somehow control the world's economy and governments, but, again, he never explains how. He fails to mention that most of those people became wealthy by investing in successful companies that rely on free market consumers to make a profit. He claims these investors goal is to impoverish and control the very people that made them wealthy. If they impoverish consumers, the companies they own would become worthless. Don't you see the contradiction in that whole premise?

He ends his silly little video by promising utopia, if we just share his video with everybody. Of course, the people who will benefit from that are the narrator himself, and the YouTube advertisers. So, the narrator is trying to capitalize on free markets, with a decisively anti-free market video. Irony at its finest.

Matt

"if you really have an open mind" "An open mind is like an open window, without screens the bugs get in." That's a great statement! Same as "So open minded the brains fell out"

"Why can't you listen to a counterargument regardless of your position?"

Usually people do, until the discount sensor trips, then it becomes pointless to continue listening to a flawed premise. That's what it means to have a screen up on an open mind. The movement of air continues but the bugs are stopped outside, so as not to infiltrate, contaminate or otherwise defile the inside.

It's on the outside of the screen where it belongs.

The full title is: Monopoly -- Who Owns the World? I cannot begin to tell you how silly this video is. But I am going to try.

"The video is anti-free market to the core. It is the same old sales pitch of the Progressive movement ever since 1900: "Those rich bastards are stealing us blind in the stock market." How "we" lost wealth because of a tiny number of rich people's profits in the stock market was never made clear. It is not made clear in this video, either. Fortunately, the video offers no solution. The Progressives did . . . and still do: more federal regulation.

The video was produced by Tim Gielen. I went to Amazon to see if he has written a book. He has not. I went online to see if he has a website. He does not. He needs one to provide links and footnotes to studies that would prove the outrageous claims that he makes in the video. There is no such website. "Footnotes? I don't need no stinking footnotes!"

For all I know, Tim Gielen is an alias for somebody named Joe Blow . . . except for his accent.

He is on Facebook. He is on Twitter. But he has no website. In short, he is 100% dependent on the people he says are out to conquer the world. How dumb is that strategy? Really, truly dumb.

Before demonstrating the utter incoherence of this documentary, I will quote Murray Rothbard. This is from Man, Economy, and State (1962). Here is what he wrote about monopoly.

Before investigating the theory of monopoly price, we must begin by defining monopoly. Despite the fact that monopoly problems occupy an enormous quantity of economic writings, little or no clarity of definition exists. There is, in fact, enormous vagueness and confusion on the subject. Very few economists have formulated a coherent, meaningful definition of monopoly (p. 661). The narrator at no point defines monopoly. You might imagine that he would, since the video is called Monopoly. This is a tip-off that the video was produced by someone with little understanding of free market economic theory. Yet the video is all about the economy.

THE VIDEO'S CRUCIAL ERROR

The video assumes that ownership of corporate shares indicates control over the economy, meaning control over consumers.

He argues that a handful of investment funds own a large percentage of American shares. This is easy to prove. What is not easy to prove is that ownership of shares conveys control over consumers.

The narrator misunderstands the economic function of the stock market. The stock market lets profit-seeking investors buy and sell shares of ownership of companies.

What is the goal of owners? To make money.

What is the business strategy of making money? Making an economic profit: bringing in more revenue than costs.

Making money requires that businesses serve customers. The shareowners are not trying to control the buyers. They are trying to figure out which companies customers will favor.

The investors' goal is not power. It is money.

This video argues that a handful of large investment funds are seeking power. It does not prove this. It simply tells us that these funds own profitable companies.

Over and over, the narrator uses the word "power." He never uses the word "profit." This is a tip-off. His analysis is not based on economic theory. It is based on some unstated theory of international political power.

SCAREMONGERING WITH STATISTICAL POPPYCOCK

He begins the video with the startling statement that hundreds of millions of people around the world have become impoverished. Then he provides a few brief videos clips related to the coronavirus. He does not explain the connection. He says that we are all going to be impoverished soon. He does not tell us why.

In fact, the world economy has grown in 2021. There was no economic catastrophe due to the lockdowns. Yet in the second half of the video, the narrator ties his theory of the imposition of a New World Order to an economic collapse created by the pandemic.

This video's thesis makes no sense.

The economic fact is this: there has been a more rapid escape from poverty over the last 30 years than at any time in the history of mankind. The United Nations estimated in 1990 that 36% of the world lived in abject poverty. In 2015, the UN estimated that this had fallen to 10%. We can see this illustrated in the marvelous TED talk videos produced by Hans Rosling. Watch his 2007 TED talk. It will amaze you.

The Monopoly video argues without any proof whatsoever that an elite of superrich individuals are attempting to impoverish the masses. If you are familiar with the history of Marxism, you will recognize this argument. It is a variation of Marx's theory of surplus value. It was wrong in 1867, and it is wrong today. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk refuted it in 1896. You can read it here.

To help immunize yourself against this preposterous argument, consider the following. If the masses become impoverished, the share prices of the companies that sell goods and services to the vast majority of now-impoverished people will fall like a stone. The basis of the wealth of the elite is that they own shares of companies that sell goods and services to billions of people. If these elitists are trying to impoverish the masses, then they are following a self-destructive policy.

The narrator never mentions this. That is because he does not believe in the free market. He does not believe that consumers are in charge. He does not offer a theory of the free market. He just offers accusations that this elitist conspiracy is seeking power

At the very beginning of the video, the narrator misinforms the viewers about a looming economic apocalypse. Why? In order to produce fear. Fear makes viewers more willing to accept the video's unsupported accusation that an elite is attempting to impoverish us all.

Sadly, there is a large market for this kind of harem-scarem nonsense. There always has been. But this guy is trying to sell Marx's analysis to conservatives and libertarians. Incredibly, some are swallowing this thesis. I hate to tell you where I saw positive reports on this preposterous video. It is on a libertarian site that I do not want to embarrass.

To understand the video's many fallacies, I begin with money.

DEFINING MONEY

Ownership of money is widely dispersed. Ludwig von Mises, following Carl Menger, defined money as the most marketable commodity. This definition was the basis of Mises' masterpiece, The Theory of Money and Credit (1912).

Money is what businesses seek.

Businesses want what consumers own: money. They must serve consumers to get rich.

This is the heart of free market economic theory. This goes back to Adam Smith. Deny this analysis, and you thereby deny free market economic theory. The narrator denies it.

He argues that an elite owns most of the world's wealth. This is nothing new. Vilfredo Pareto wrote about this in 1897. He concluded that about 20% of the people in every European nation he studied owned about 80% of the wealth in that country. This is the famous Pareto distribution of 20/80.

The distribution is known as a power law. It goes all the way up. This means that about 20% of the 20%, or 4% of the population, will own about 64% of the wealth (80% of 80%). It also means that 0.8% of the population (20% of 4%) will own about 51% (80% of 64%) of the wealth. Any time that we find a deviation from this distribution, we should look for reasons to explain it. It is not easy to do this, since nobody knows why the initial Pareto distribution exists. It is the great mystery of modern economic theory. There is no agreed-upon explanation.

I recommend this approach. Whenever you find a deviation from the Pareto distribution, look for some kind of government intervention that protects certain owners of capital from the competitive effects of the free market. This is not what the narrator in the video does.

First, however, make sure that the person who asserts the existence of this deviation has detailed statistical evidence supporting his statement. He may just be blowing smoke.

The narrator never offers an economic explanation for this abnormal concentration of wealth. He also does not offer any footnotes to detailed studies that prove that this distribution exists. He just says that it does. He quotes Oxfam, a Leftist organization in Great Britain.

If he blamed specific government policies or central-bank policies for this abnormal distribution of wealth, I would be willing to pay more attention to the details of his argument. But he does not. This means that he blames the free market. It was a free market that let these people accumulate lots of corporate shares. What is the matter with that? There is nothing wrong with it morally. It is not a failure of the market that successful investors accumulate ownership of companies. So, what does he want us to do with his information? Share it, he says. But then what? He never says. He has no program of reform.

Then why produce the video?

"Look, Ma, I'm on YouTube!" So are a lot of crackpots.

I recommend that you follow this rule. "If a video calls attention to a problem, but does not offer a theory of why the problem exists, ignore the video." Here are other rules. "If the video offers a plausible explanation for the problem, what does it offer as a solution? Is the solution consistent with solving the problem? Will the solution make things worse? Who is going to impose the solution? What are his incentives for imposing the solution? Does the solution involve badges and guns? If so, do not join the movement."

SUMMARY

First, this video is anti-free market. It is really warmed-over Marxism.

Second, the video tries to connect the pandemic with a looming economic collapse. But there has been no collapse. The world economy continues to grow.

Third, the video says that there is an elite seeking power. It offers no examples of how the elite attains power by owning stock market mutual funds. It shows that a handful of funds own a high percentage of the shares. Problem: the funds invest in terms of gaining a profit, and the basis of gaining a profit in a free market society is a service to consumers.

Fourth, the video tells us that this elite group of superrich people plans to impose world taxation policies that are going to impoverish those few of us who are not wiped out by the economic collapse created by the pandemic. It does not say why politicians in every nation will legislate such taxes, or why voters will consent. It also does not ask this question: "If the superrich own most of the world, how much money can the rest of the world pay into the governments' tills?" Not much.

Fifth, and most tellingly, the video ends with a series of utopian promises to people who pass along this video. Anytime you see a video that promises world transformation by spreading a video that exposes the elite, you know you are dealing with somebody who believes in salvation by knowledge. Here is his list of promises to those who will share the video: a world with "no poverty, no pollution, diseases, or wars" (59:49). "If we all share this video, we can wake up humanity. Together we can stop corruption, and make a better world" (1:02:46). But he does not tell us exactly how we can do this. We cannot do it by sitting around a campfire and singing "Kum Ba Yah."

Sixth, he offers this hope. This world "is all on the horizon." Why should I believe this? Because Rumi said so. "The wound is the place where the light enters you." (1:00:26) And who is Rumi? He was a 13th-century Persian Sufi mystic. Somehow, I am not persuaded.

The video ends with a website: www.StopWorldControl.com. This site's home page features this video. But the site is limited strictly to discussions of the pandemic and government controls related to the pandemic. There is no mention of transforming humanity, saving the world, or anything else of a utopian nature.

CONCLUSION

This low-budget video is a good example of scaremongering, lousy statistics, anti-free market analysis, confusion of wealth and power, and utopian visions of world transformation (the NWO bad guys vs. mystics). It all hinges, in the name of anti-conspiracy, on one more conspiracy theory. It features the usual suspects: George Soros, Klaus Schwab, and Bill Gates.

The basic sales pitch is this: the free market is impotent. Consumers are impotent. An elite invested their money, which has made them rich, and somehow, in ways not explained, they have been able to leverage their wealth through investing in the free market into a total international system of universal despotism in which the elite will become the owners of the wealth of the whole world.

But if the statistics are accurate, they already own the world. That's the subtitle of the video: Who Owns the World? Why are they wasting time and money to get what they already have? Duh.

What will be the agency of enforcement of this universal despotism? The ultimate impotent bureaucracy: the United Nations.

The tiny American conservative movement bought into this theory back in the mid-1950's. They actually believed that the United Nations had meaningful power. It never did. The UN is a place where senior-level bureaucrats in Third World countries can live in New York City high on the hog, and be able to avoid paying parking tickets because they have diplomatic immunity. They love it. Their wives love it. It drives the NYPD nuts.

This video is one more example of H. L. Mencken's observation: Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Matt

I would say I am about as freedom loving as they get, used to refer to myself as right leaning, but think that libertarian likely better sums myself up at this point. Especially with encroaching government intervention, and how (in my opinion) horribly they seem to mess anything up that they get involved in. Rather than calling for more intervention, I had a different take away from the video. For those that don't like to be under massive amounts of control or government rule, there may be a larger invisible elephant in the room than the government. Perhaps an animal that has substantial control over the government themselves, that we (or I) "fear" in the first place, through things like campaign funding etc. The beauty of the free market is that at this point we can still choose to not feed that animal, but it is at a point where it will take strategic thinking in order to do so as the animal has already gotten so big. That's a little more "pro freedom" then marxist, but funny how different people can see things so differently

Do these same conglomerates represent the wealth of a very elite group? Not necessarily. Literally millions of investors are lumped into these ownership stats. Hell even I am included in these stats and I can assure you I’m not part of a world domination plot, nor am I wealthy.

This is simply someone who doesn’t fully understand how investing and the stock market works, or it’s someone who is intentionally putting a misleading spin on something to imply a point that isn’t necessarily true. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s the former and not the latter.

That is not an excerpt from the book and this thread is still garbage.

Matt

And agree with GG, this whole concept shows a fundamental lack of knowledge on what institutional investors are, where they get their money, and what their motivations are. It's anti-capitalistic garbage.

no

You shouldn't have to ask me. It took all of about 30 seconds to determine the quote isn't from Klaus Schwab's book.

Matt